Dr.
Ansari's is the latest reasoned opinion received on unpolished rice,
whole wheatmeal and gur. I share it with the readers.
"Of all cereals, rice is
the richest in starch, of which it has nearly 50 p.c.; the starch in
rice has the further advantage of being present in small and easily
digestible grains. When boiled, rice swells up and absorbs nearly five
times its weight of water, while some of its mineral and other
constituents are lost in the process of boiling. But the most important
ingredient lost in this process of boiling is the water-soluble Vitamin
B. In the process of polishing rice, all outer coverings of the grains
are removed, consisting of the husk as well as the pigmented covering
contain­ing Vitamin B, Fat and Protein, which are necessary for health
and growth. It has been proved that the absence of Vitamin B from
polished rice has been instrumental in causing Beri-Beri. Un­polished
rice, on the other hand, not being subjected to the boil­ing process
used in polishing rice in the mills, retains Vitamin B as well as the
Protein, Fat and mineral matter in which rice is none too rich. The
unpolished rice, hand-pounded, is superior to the unpolished rice turned
from the mills, in so far as the former is not subjected to the heating
process, even though it is dry- heating which it has to undergo in the
mills, "Wheat is the most important of cereal foods in India. The wheat
grain consists of bran or outer envelope, mainly composed of cellulose,
the kernel consisting of starch and the germ consist­ing of soluble
starch, protein and some fat. According to professor Church, a whole
wheat grain has the following composition:

"In the process of
milling, the germ and the bran are rejected, and with it undoubtedly are
discarded some of the most useful chemical constituents of the wheat,
for, with the germ a consider­able amount of protein and fat are lost,
and with the bran are lost mineral matter as well as some protein. The
recognition of this has led to some process during milling to prevent
it, but the wheatmeal ground in the mills is never so rich in these
ingredients as the whole wheatmeal flour ground in the indigenous
chakki. The latter consists of all the three ingredients, i.e.. the
bran, the kernel and the germ and is hence superior in nutritive value,
besides being cheaper and more readily available to the poor people in
the countryside.
"Gur,
jaggery or molass is produced as by-product in the manu­facture of
crystallized sugar. The juice from the sugar-cane is cooked in a big
pan. the water being allowed to evaporate, and dark-brown syrupy
substance is thus produced which contains crys tallizable cane-sugar,
uncrystallizable fruit-sugar and some impuri ties and colouring matter.
The following are their composition:

"Refined crystalline
cane-sugar, or Sucrose, is the most familiar of all kinds of sugar. It
is chemically indistinguishable from sugar derived from beetroot, maple,
etc. Sucrose is assimilated in the process of digestion, only after it
has been inverted by ferments and acid secretions of the stomach. It is
then stored up in the liver as glycogen. On the other hand, fruit-sugar
is all ready to be assimilated into glycogen. It is. therefore, clear
that crystalline or refined cane-sugar and gur, taken quantity
for quantity would take different times in their assimilation. Gur
consisting of cane- sugar and fruit-sugar in the proportion of 2 to 1,
would be as­similated more rapidly than cane-sugar alone taken in the
same quantity. Therefore, the nutritive value of gur is at least
33 p.c. superior to that of refined sugar."
The truth of the opinion can be tested by everybody for himself by trying
pure gur, chakki-ground whole wheatmeal and hand-pounded
unpolished rice.